As an historian (UCB, 1982) who has taught interdisciplinary courses on American and European culture, I am firmly opposed to this resolution, and urge the ASA to defeat it. As my general objections below indicate, this resolution violates all principles of academic freedom and is counterproductive, and as my specific rebuttals to the resolution itself indicate, it is based on false or disputed accusations against Israel.

BRIEF GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE RESOLUTION

This resolution is deceptive, from its stated purpose to its claims and the wider implications of passing it.

This resolution asks the ASA to accept the claims it makes against Israel as accurate and undisputed. In fact, many of them are false or disputed, and based on unreliable or disputed sources. Furthermore, the resolution assumes Israel acts out of malevolence by stripping away all context for Israel’s actions. It does not mention the wars and terrorist campaigns unleashed against Israel since its founding nor the Palestinians terrorist campaign launched in 2000 that claimed thousands of Israeli victims, nor the terrorist group Hamas that controls Gaza, or the fact that Iran and its clients—Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—seek the destruction of Israel. Israel’s actions cannot be evaluated without including this context or its moral and legal rights to protect its people from terrorism and aggression. An academic association would be falling below normal academic standards if it passed a resolution based on claims it has not responsibly and seriously verified or evaluated.

If the American Studies Association (ASA) passes this resolution, it will violate core ASA values, discrediting itself and its members.

Academic boycotts are antithetical to academic endeavors. In passing this resolution, ASA would betray a core tenet of scholarly and academic inquiry simply in order to advance a narrow political agenda.

The AAUP has repeatedly condemned them, even against the undisputed injustice of South African apartheid,[1] and expressed its “disappointment,” with the Association of Asian American Scholars for its call for an academic boycott, calling on the organization to find other ways to register its objections to Israeli policies.[2]

Statute 5 of the International Council for Science clearly states that it “opposes discrimination based on such factors as ethnic origin, religion, citizenship, language, political or other opinion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or age.”[3]

38 Nobel Laureates signed a joint letter deploring a proposed boycott of Israel because it is “antithetical to principles of academic and scientific freedom,* antithetical to principles of freedom of expression and inquiry, and* may well constitute discrimination by virtue of national origin;”[4]

Three hundred American university and college presidents signed a statement in 2007, denouncing a proposed academic boycott of Israel, stating that such boycotts are “utterly antithetical to the fundamental values of the academy, where we will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment.”[5]

Omar Barghouti, a BDS co-founder and leader, does not observe the academic boycott of Israel. In 2009, he enrolled in a PhD program at Tel Aviv University instead of pursuing the degree at a Palestinian university. When asked about this apparent hypocrisy, he declines to answer.[6]

Al-Quds president, Sari Nusseibeh, opposed academic boycotts of Israel, calling instead for “cooperation based on mutual respect.”The school had 60 ongoing joint research projects with Israeli universities in 2009 alone.[7]

3. This resolution is uniquely prejudiced against only one nation and one group of people in the world: the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Despite the manifestly far worse violations of academic freedom and students’ rights by multiple nations in the region and beyond, this resolution singles out Israel alone for opprobrium. It also ignores the manifold violations of academic freedom and students’ rights of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Palestinian Hamas government in Gaza where the following violations and others have been amply recorded:

The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Education pulled books of Palestinian folktales from school libraries because of their alleged “sexual innuendoes,” in March, 2007;[8]

“Freedom of the press is nonexistent in the Gaza Strip… Freedom here means to express the views of the governing party only,” according to journalist Reham Abdel-Karim, Director of the Office of MBC in Gaza. Journalists are routinely threatened with violence and death;[10]

“Over the past two years, Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been subjected to a systematic campaign of intimidation that has resulted in the death of some and the detention of others.” Palestinian-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Dec. 2008.[11]

4. In passing this resolution, the American Studies Association would be punishing not just Israel’s progressive, cosmopolitan academic community.[12] It would also be sacrificing for a narrow political agenda Israel’s cutting edge research in the sciences, biotechnology, environmental sustainability, medicine, high tech, and other fields that have already benefited people around the globe.

5. The purpose of this resolution is not to protect the educational rights of Palestinians. As the resolution’s link to USACBI indicates, it is part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions [BDS] campaign, which advocates extremist Palestinian demands, including the Palestinian refugee “right of return”[13] which would effectively dismantle the Jewish state.

“It is well-known and understood that the Arabs, in demanding the return of the refugees to Palestine, mean their return as masters of the Homeland… they mean the liquidation of the State of Israel.”—Muhammad Salah al-Din Bey, Foreign Minister of Egypt, 1949[14]

Dr. Norman Finkelstein, a notorious critic of Israel, underscored that BDS is not primarily concerned with Palestinian rights. BDS, he noted, is “not really talking about rights. They’re talking about [how] they want to destroy Israel.”[15]

Endorsing the BDS demand for a “right of return” would mean that the over five million Palestinians that UNRWA designates as refugees could flood into Israel, effectively turning Israel into a Palestinian Arab state. This quantity is so high because UNRWA applies a unique definition of refugee which includes the descendants of refugees, though no other refugee population in the world passes refugee status to subsequent generations.[16] At most, only roughly 30,000 Palestinian who became refugees in 1948 are still alive, not 5 million.[17] Furthermore, this demand ignores the approximately 850,000 Jews who fled rising persecution or were forcibly expelled from Arab and Muslim lands after the 1948 War. Israel welcomed and resettled close to 600,000 of them.[18]

In passing this resolution, the ASA would be endorsing an extremist agenda whose effect would be to undermine peace efforts and violate international law by effectively dismantling a sovereign state whose right to exist is enshrined in international law[19] and whose right to exist in secure borders in enshrined in UN resolutions and international agreements.[20]

THE COMPLETE TEXT OF THE RESOLUTION WITH ANALYSIS

Whereas the American Studies Association is an organization dedicated to the preservation and support of academic freedom and of the right to education for peoples the world over;

FACTS

This resolution puts the American Studies Association squarely against academic freedom and the right to education for all peoples. As indicated above, the AAUP, the International Academy of Science, dozens of Nobel Laureates and three hundred American university presidents all underscored that academic boycotts are “utterly antithetical to the values of the academy.” Furthermore, scholars associated with Israeli universities would be denied the right to pursue their research and other studies with the ASA. The ASA is advocating discrimination based on national origin or political views.

and

Whereas the United Nations has reported that the current Israeli occupation of Palestine has impacted students “whose development is deformed by pervasive deprivations affecting health, education and overall security”;

FACTS:

This accusation is based on a highly questionable source. It comes from a report submitted by Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories.[21] Mr. Falk’s history of troubling views and unreliable reporting about Jews, Israel and other issues have led the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice,[22] the Palestinian Authority (who called him a “partisan of Hamas”),[23]and Canada[24] to call for his removal from his UN post, and led Human Rights Watch to remove him from one of its committees in 2012.[25] UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemned him for posting an anti-Semitic cartoon on his blog in 2011,[26] and he was widely condemned by the U.S., UN, and European officials for blaming American policy, including its alliance with Israel, for the Boston Marathon bombings.[27]

In addition, Falk has been unreliable in his reportage about actual conditions in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2011, Falk accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Palestinians in eastern Jerusalem despite the fact that the Palestinian population in eastern Jerusalem has grown by over 280% over the last four decades.[28]In 2002 and again in 2007, Falk falsely accused Israel of planning a holocaust or genocide of the Palestinian people.[29][A1]

If Palestinian students’ “development has been deformed” over the last 13 years, it is because Palestinian leaders chose terrorism instead of peace in 2000, killing or wounding of thousands of Israelis and necessitating Israel’s counter-terrorism measures. Palestinian leaders’, not Israeli, policies are impeding Palestinian students’ education and welfare.

During its administration of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel did more to foster Palestinian education and welfare than any other government, including the Palestinian government in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. Israel dramatically improved the poor state of Palestinian education once Jordan’s control of the West Bank and Egypt’s control of Gaza ended. Under Israeli administration between 1967 and 1994:[30]

The number of universities and colleges in the West Bank and Gaza soared from zero to seven, and networks of vocational schools and twenty community colleges and teacher-training seminaries were built.

More children were educated. The number of students and elementary school classes rose 100% though the population grew only 28%.

Literacy rates soared from only 50% of the population in 1967 to 86% of people over age 15.

Israel instituted freedom of the press, assembly, and of academic research.

Israel significantly improved Palestinian health. Israel built 146 health clinics in the West Bank and 20 in Gaza, and offered universal health insurance. Infant mortality rates dropped by two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, and Israel introduced a systematic program of inoculation that eradicated widespread childhood diseases like polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles. Life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 and rose further to 74 in Gaza and 75 in the West Bank in 2011.[31]

Even today, despite ongoing terrorist threats, Palestinian students and professionals continue to study in Israel. Palestinian Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, has been pursuing a PhD at Tel Aviv University;[32]Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the ban on Palestinian students studying in Israeli universities, implemented during the 2nd Intifada, be canceled;[33] in 2011 alone, 2,000 Palestinian doctors attended conferences in Israel, and 100 Palestinian doctors chose to do their internships in Israel;[34]Israel continues to offer Palestinian prisoners educational opportunities for college and post-college degrees with very few exceptions.[35]

While the ongoing conflict certainly affects both Palestinian and Israeli students, the Palestinians have not been “deformed” by Israel or its self-defense policies. Even today, despite Hamas’ repressive rule in Gaza, the PA’s problematic governance in the West Bank, and Israel’s counter-terrorism measures, the West Bank and Gaza enjoy a higher standard of living than all South Asian and Arab countries and even outpaced Brazil, Russia (adult literacy notwithstanding), India, and China according to recent UN Human Development reports.[36]

Nowhere does this resolution condemn the impact of Palestinian terrorism on Israeli students. Palestinian terrorists attempted 39,000 attacks, an average of nine a day, between 2000 and 2012.[37] Hamas, whose covenant calls for the murder of Jews and “obliteration” of Israel,[38] launched over 14,000 rockets and mortars into Israel’s civilian communities between 2005 and 2012[39] that indiscriminately target and have hit Israeli nursery schools, middle schools, and universities, forcing closures. Israelis children in the town of Sderot suffer from PTSD, and Israeli schools near Gaza have repeatedly been forced to close. Israel finally fortified school buildings and playgrounds with bomb shelters for the children.[40] Hamas fired a guided anti-tank missile at a clearly marked Israeli school bus on April 7, 2011.[41] In 2008, a terrorist entered the library of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva and opened fire on students, murdering eight and wounding nine of them. Residents of Gaza celebrated the attack,[42] the Hamas government called it a “heroic deed,”[43] and a Palestinian poll found that 84% of West Bank residents interviewed supported the attack.[44]

and

Whereas Palestinian universities and schools have been periodically forced to close as a result of actions related to the Occupation, or have been destroyed by Israeli military strikes, and Palestinian students and scholars face restrictions on movement and travel that limit their ability to attend and work at universities, travel to conferences and to study abroad, and thereby obstruct their right to education;

FACTS

The “occupation” did not cause closure of any Palestinian schools. Rather, Israeli administration of the West Bank and Gaza created new educational opportunities for students. If schools were forced to close periodically, it was an unintended consequence of Israel’s effort to protect its citizens from the Palestinian suicide bombing and other terrorist campaigns unleashed in 2000.

Some school closures have occurred not because of Israel, but because college groups affiliated with Hamas or Fatah have engaged in violent conflict with one another. The PA, not Israel, closed Birzeit University in July 2007 because of the violence and vandalism of Fatah and pro-Hamas students. [45]

Palestinians have used schools and universities as recruiting stations, weapons storage facilities.and rocket launching sites..Buildings that are used in such a manner are legitimate military targets under international law.[46]

Palestinians protested when Hamas planned to use a school to shield weapons in 2008, and Palestinian human rights groups denounced the Hamas weaponry and training areas located near three elementary schools in Rafah after an explosion wounded 17 children in 2010.[47]

Hamas booby trapped schools in Gaza. In one trap, the underground fuse led to a nearby small children’s zoo.[48]

Gaza’s Islamic University is a weapons lab and production line for Qassam rockets. PA President Abbas accused Hamas of using the school as a firing base for attacks on Fatah members in May, 2007.[49]

Students’ freedom of movement in Gaza is determined solely by Hamas. Israel completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and it is currently ruled by the terrorist group Hamas. Though terrorism from the West Bank increased recently, the overall downward trend in terrorism led Israel to dramatically reduce the number of checkpoints and the ten[50] that still exist are inactive. They are activated only when there are new, specific terrorist threats.[51] In 2009, “Palestinians from the main cities can now travel in the northern West Bank without any security checks,” and the active checkpoints only check Israeli vehicles to prevent them from entering Palestinian cities, according to Ha’aretz.[52]

and

Whereas the Israeli state and Israeli universities directly and indirectly impose restrictions on education, scholarships, and participation in campus activities on Palestinian students in Israel;

FACTS

Just the opposite is the case. Israel encourages Israeli Arab students to attend university, and has adopted programs to help them adapt to university life. The Beatrice Weston Unit for the Advancement of Students at the Technion, which mentors Arab students so they can adapt to academia, has helped cut Arab students’ drop-out rate in half, and is being imitated at other Israeli universities at the urging of the government.[53] Arab students accounted for 10 percent of Hebrew University’s student population in 2008[54]and 30% of Haifa University’s student body in 2012.[55] In 2012, Israel’s Council on Higher Education launched a 300 million shekel plan to help minority students get to and succeed in college, including an extensive plan for mentoring them in university and opening information centers in Arab communities to encourage and help future college applicants.[56] The Council also mandated that Israeli colleges translate their websites into Arabic, set up workshops for Arab students to improve their Hebrew, and draw up plans for increasing their minority enrollment or lose government funding.[57][A2] Israel does not limit Palestinian students’ participation in campus activities. For example, in 2012, “a wave” of Nakba events once again swept across Israeli campuses.[58] There is political opposition to universities sponsoring such events which mourn the fact that Arab states were not able to destroy the newly declared state of Israel in 1948, just as in the U.S. there would be political opposition to demonstrations mourning the American victory and Nazi defeat in World War II. Israel’s Parliament passed the “Nakba Law” in 2011 which stipulates that “events like these may be held on university campuses as long as the university itself is not responsible for financing them.”[59]

and

Whereas Israel imposes severe restrictions on foreign academics seeking to attend conferences and do research in Palestine as well as on scholars of Palestinian origin who wish to travel to Israel-Palestine;

FACTS

Israel hosts thousands of foreign academics at its hundreds of academic conferences, such as the thousand foreign and Israeli scholars who attended the Nanotechnology conference held in Tel Aviv in 2012.[60] Nor does Israel prevent scholars from doing research in Palestine. However, since the Palestinian terrorist campaign began in 2000, protecting Israelis from terrorism became an urgent priority, necessitating vetting of people with any ties to Hamas, Hezbollah or other terrorist groups. Nonetheless, there have been only a few, isolated cases of entry refusal.[61] In fact, Israel is an open society with robust and contentious political views freely expressed. Israel apologized profusely when Noam Chomsky was prevented from entering in 2010 (though he had spoken before in Israel), attributed the mishap to an overzealous border guard, and assured him he would be able to speak in the future.[62]

and

Whereas Israeli institutions of higher education have not condemned or taken measures to oppose the Occupation and racial discrimination against Palestinians in Israel, but have, rather, been directly and indirectly complicit in the systematic maintenance of the Occupation and of policies and practices that discriminate against Palestinian students and scholars throughout Palestine and Israel;

FACTS

Israeli universities do not discriminate against Palestinians in Israel or the West Bank and Gaza. To the contrary, as documented above, it has implemented policies to help Palestinians in Israel attend and succeed in the universities. In addition, the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, as well as the heads of six of Israel’s seven universities, and the education minister, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and Knesset members all signed a petition in 2006 calling for an end to the temporary ban on Palestinian students from the West Bank and Gaza attending Israeli universities, a policy that had been implemented at the height of the terrorist attacks against Israelis.[63]

Israeli university faculty members hold a wide range of opinions concerning Israeli-Palestinian relations, and are free to express, assert, and take action to advance those opinions, including opinions that are critical of the Israeli government’s policies.

Israel does not occupy Gaza. It completely withdrew in 2005, uprooting over 9,000 Jews from their 30-year-old communities and removing all troops. According to an ICRC report, there is no such thing as occupation without the physical presence of troops on the ground.[64] Israel offered the Palestinians a contiguous state in 2000 and 2008, but Palestinian leaders rejected those offers.[65] Israel still maintains a presence in the West Bank in accordance with the Oslo Accords, signed by the PLO and Israel in 1993, which stipulated that final status issues, including future borders, were to be determined through direct negotiations. Thus far, those negotiations have not led to resolution of final status issues.

and

Whereas Israeli academic institutions are deeply complicit in Israel’s violations of international law and human rights and in its denial of the right to education and academic freedom to Palestinians, in addition to their basic rights as guaranteed by international law.

FACTS

This document has offered no evidence that Israel violates international law and human rights, and this generic accusation should not be accepted without specific accusations, evidence, and debate. Those who make such claims are often driven by a political agenda and distort principles of international law and human rights in the service of that agenda.[66] Most of the accusations against Israel are disputed by many military, legal, and human rights experts. For example, British Colonel (ret.) Richard Kemp testified to the UN Human Rights Council that “During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.”[67]

As documented above, the claim of denying Palestinians their rights to academic freedom and education is contradicted by the evidence.

and

Whereas the American Studies Association seeks to promote academic exchange, collaboration and opportunities and supports the right to education and academic freedom for students and scholars everywhere;

FACTS

Clearly the American Studies Association is proposing a resolution that does just the opposite of promoting “academic exchange” by singularly discriminating against the one Jewish state in the world, based on spurious or debatable accusations.

Be it resolved that the American Studies Association endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

FACTS

It is not clear that “Palestinian civil society” represents Palestinians.

According to some sources, the 150 groups that signed the BDS call are generally labor unions and anti-Israel human rights organizations like PICCR, Addameer and Al Mezan (but not the Palestinian Center for Human Rights). Most of the other ones do not originate in Palestine, are based out of Syria and Jordan, or are world-wide organizations.[68]

Indeed, many Palestinians oppose BDS, including thealmost 100,000 Palestinians who work in Israel and in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.[69]

The largest Palestinian trade union, the PGFTU, representing close to 75% of Palestinian workers,[70]opposed the BDS campaign, arguing it is “bad news for Palestinian workers.”[71]

In addition, thousands of Palestinian and Israeli Jews work together in the Barkan zone where they have “created an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect,” according to interviews.[72] Palestinian businessmen have also invested in the Barkan industrial zone.[73] Approximately 16,000 West Bank Palestinian businessmen have founded companies and factories in Israel and the industrial zones of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to a 2012 study.[74]These people clearly would be harmed by the “civil society” call for BDS.

When Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri met with Rami Levy, owner of Israeli supermarkets in the West Bank, to discuss the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, the BDS movement called for boycotting al-Masri and claimed a majority of Palestinians oppose the Arab Peace Initiative.[75] In fact, a 2012 Palestinian poll revealed that a majority of Palestinians support the Saudi Peace Initiative.[76]

Be it also resolved that the ASA supports the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine and in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

FACTS

These rights are not in jeopardy, and the same rights should be accorded to those who believe the call for BDS is prejudiced, destructive, and undermines hopes for Palestinian-Israeli peace.

[13] The US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel website http://www.usacbi.org/mission-statement/ lists three demands: “Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”

[21] UN, Sixty-sixth General Assembly, Third Committee, Press Release, 25th and 26th Meetings, Press Release, Oct. 20, 2011 at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/gashc4016.doc.htm. The full report, written by Richard Falk, can be seen here: Richard Falk, “Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories

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